


In the Next Life

by QueenofBaws (Sisterwives)



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Allusions to death, Angst, M/M, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sisterwives/pseuds/QueenofBaws
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prompt fill for the LexZexFest event on Tumblr. Original prompt was: “Meeting for the first time. As Aeleus and Ienzo, as Zexion and Lexaeus, as Aeleus and Ienzo again after recompletion—any or all.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Next Life

It was strange, he thought, that the sun could be shining so brightly and the birds chirping so sweetly when Lord Ansem first brought him in. Not that it was a rare occurrence—indeed, it was almost _always_ sunny in the Gardens, the smell of spring blossoms wafting through the town, carried on drafts of warm breeze—but strange in the sense that Aeleus had been taught throughout his boyhood that tragedy only seemed to strike when it was dark and stormy. People didn’t die on sunny days, and certainly no children were _orphaned_. 

So when the wind brought with it whispers of a new Apprentice, still cutting teeth and wet behind the ears, curiosities were piqued. The family name was unfamiliar to him, but the way Even uttered it had made it at once abundantly clear the sort of weight it pulled. There was a _reason_ Ansem was bringing in this child, even if it wasn’t readily apparent to the rest of them. Even Braig, notorious for despising the post, found himself loitering near the front doors of the Castle alongside the other Guards, waiting and watching.

It was even _stranger_ , he thought, that when the two finally climbed the stairs from the courtyard, there were no cries. No sniffles nor hiccups nor pained wails—only silence. How young must the boy have been, and yet the death of his parents seemed to affect him so little, if _at all_. He kept his head high, as a little prince might, and though his features were large and plump with youth, his expression was dour, almost _cold_. There were no outward signs of loss or distress, no puffiness to his eyes or shiny patches on his cheeks, only boredom, only apathy.

Ansem held his hand as he led him to the Castle, to the strange entourage awaiting them there. “This is Ienzo,” the wise Lord said. “He’s going to be staying with us from now on.” The child held an ice cream stick much in the same way Even was known to hold a scalpel, fingers stained sticky blue instead red. There was something horribly clinical, almost _sinister_ , in the way he examined each of them from afar, gaze appraising as it flicked methodically from head to toe and back. Ansem’s voice trailed off, but the sentiment hung in the air, unspoken but resounding: _Because his parents are_ dead _._

When he looked again, he was surprised to find the child’s eyes on him. It must’ve ached something fierce for him to meet the Guard’s gaze without craning back his neck, but he made no motion to adjust his head. Something in Aeleus’s chest tightened, then _dropped_ , a peculiar sort of sensation he’d neither expected nor welcomed. There was a reason Ansem had taken the boy in, he reminded himself. He thought perhaps, being on the other side of that impossibly sharp stare, he was beginning to understand what that reason might’ve been.

\- - -

There was no color in The World That Never Was, only shades of shadow spanning the gamut from grey to black. He walked through the world like a dead man, not that it was terribly far from the truth—each hour passed like an eternity spooled out on grainy film, occasionally broken by cameos of faces that might’ve once been familiar to him, had they not been hooded in shade. They spoke in voices deep as rolls of thunder, but their words were lost to the wind, syllables melting into white noise and radio static no matter how hard he tried to parse their meanings. But he could see the anger in their eyes when they looked upon him, and still yet, could sense their uneasiness and fear when in his presence.

He had wandered the sterile halls of the damned place for what might’ve been seconds, might’ve been _centuries_ , before a new figure was brought in with a flourish. They stood nearly a head shorter than even the slightest of their number, but carried themselves as someone accustomed to looking _down_ on others. Another hidden face, he thought, another mouth to spew unintelligible orders, another ghost in this—their purgatorial home. Until, of course, the hood was removed, and he could see his eyes.

 _Blue_. The brightest glimmer of color he’d seen since waking up in that place…the _only_ color he’d seen. It was the color the sky took on after a hard storm, the color that shone when rays of sun caught in fountain streams, the color of ice cream stains on rolled-up lab coat sleeves.

He gasped as though struck, the air simultaneously flooding his senses as it was knocked from him. All at once, in one tidal wave, there was a rush of sound and motion and _color_ ; he watched as the world began to brighten around him, filling with purples and oranges, greens and yellows, but of them all, it was still the _blue_ that rang out like a long-forgotten song. The fog fell from around him, and in an instant, he remembered who and what he was. He remembered _everything_.

The labs, once so pristine and white, stained red with fear, blood, _death_. How the sun had been shining so brightly over the flowers, over the fountains, only to go out as swiftly as a candle’s flame in the wind. Round, childish features that had narrowed and hardened with age, but also with _knowledge_ —horrible, gruesome _knowledge_ —tempered by guilt as hot iron by water. A sudden pain in his chest, a feeling of loss, vision blurring until he could see nothing at all, save for the picture etched so sharply in his mind’s eye; reaching, reaching, _reaching_ for Ienzo’s fallen form on the ground, knowing full well even then that he was gone, that his eyes had fogged over and his chest had stilled.

Later, in a hallway, away from prying eyes and hungry ears, they met again. It was difficult to decide who sought whom out, but years upon years of experience taught him that _nothing_ was ever coincidental when Ienzo was involved. The absence in his chest gave a strange pang when that sharp gaze was upon him once more. There was no trace of the child whose hand Ansem had once held in those eyes. He wondered when the child he had carried on his shoulders and guarded from afar had grown so well into his bones and mind. He still stood mountainously over the prodigy, but now, alone in the quiet stretch of corridor, he knew without a question in his head that Ienzo could _break_ him, if only he so desired. How had he missed _that_ transformation?

Silence rolled between them like fog, dampening the air until he felt he was breathing water. He fell to his knees without meaning to, without _realizing_ , prostrate before the onetime heir, every bit in that moment Atlas, with the weight of the world pressing down on him from every angle. “I’m sorry,” he spoke, words tearing his throat like shards of glass, thick from disuse. “I wasn’t there when you fell. I couldn’t stop them, I couldn’t save you. _I couldn’t save you_.” He thought he could still remember what sorrow felt like, and the sensation lingered on the tip of his tongue, threatening to overtake him…but never _quite_. “Ienzo…”

“No.” The word seemed to halt time itself, sending the world to rock on its axis. He dared not look up into those eyes, afraid of what he might see—afraid more still of what he might _not_. But he felt a faint weight, so very slight, yet coiled tightly as a trap preparing to sink into his flesh as the other laid his hands atop the planes of his shoulders. “Ienzo,” he said, voice a deep, confidential whisper in the darkness, “Is _dead_. Aeleus is _dead_.” He paused to roll the word on his tongue for a moment, savoring its implications. “But _we_ …we are better than they could _ever_ be.” There was a minute movement, the most ethereal whisper of shifting fabric, and he felt the other’s breath and lips against the shell of his ear, the only real warmth he’d felt in eons. “ _Protect me_ ,” the other implored, “And we will bring this world to its very knees.”

He tightened his grip on other’s cloak and set his head against his frail chest, mourning the silence that echoed from within his ribs. He didn’t speak another word—he didn’t _need_ to.

\- - -

It was with a start and a gasp that he awoke, face-first on cold, dusty marble. There had been a blade in his stomach, that much he could remember, slicing through him to the quick, leaving him incredulously—and _mortally—_ wounded. But through the numbness of his arms, he could feel no gash, no injury, nothing that might suggest he had only just fallen at the hands of a novice Keyblade wielder, no proof at all of the fight he shouldn’t have started. There _was_ , however, a thrumming in his ears that he feared might drive him mad, if it didn’t soon cease.

When he realized it was his heartbeat, he opened his eyes.

The room was dark, but he’d seen it often enough in his nightmares to know it immediately. Somehow, impossibly, he was _back_. Back in Radiant Garden, back in the underground labs, back where the madness began and all of their lives were lost…

He looked up and felt the world shift under him as he laid eyes on the form in front of him. How many times had he woken in a cold sweat from the same image, replaying over and over like some terrible reprise? His body was still so _numb_ , and _weak_ , his arms struggling to counter his own weight, but the slight breath made Ienzo’s chest rise, and he found the will to push himself back up off the floor.

Somewhere to his right, he could feel the unnatural _heat_ that emanated from one of the traitors, one of the _assassins_ , but it was a sleight he could resolve later. The ground lurched beneath his feet as his vision spun, and he managed to catch himself before he could fall once more. Slowly, his bearings were returning to him, and slowly he watched as Ienzo began to wake.

Without a second thought, he reached down to help him up, feeling thin fingers digging into the meat of his forearms, scrabbling for purchase and understanding. Ienzo was weak on his feet, but Aeleus had no issue in holding him upright, watching and waiting as lucidity cleared the fog over his eyes. “Wh… _wh?_ ” Ienzo mumbled, brow knit tight and throat working visibly. “Where are we?” he asked, words slurred with exhaustion and what could’ve been fear. “This isn’t…but _Oblivion_ …” A moment passed, then two, and Aeleus found himself looking into those infinite eyes again. “What’re you wearing?” He reached down and patted at his own chest and neck with clumsy hands, “What am _I_ wearing…?” His eyes grew larger and larger beneath the shadow of his bangs, making him look impossibly younger, and somehow more vulnerable than he had _ever_ appeared to Aeleus.

“Ienzo…” he started, still unused to the beating in his chest—much less the way it _raced_ when he spoke the other’s name.

Realization dawned on him then, as though he had only _then_ realized who it was that he was speaking to. “You were dead,” Ienzo’s voice was small, confused. “You were _dead_ ,” he repeated, “You were dead, you were dead, oh _God_ , you were _dead_.” He all but collapsed against him, breathing uneven and chest hitching as he was forced to come to terms with what had taken place.

But Aeleus held him steady, as he had for years and lifetimes. “We’re home, Ienzo,” he said, burying his face in the other’s hair. “We’re _home_.”


End file.
